The article discusses the issue of potential areas where social innovations can be implemented by communal social welfare centers. The innovations were defined as changes in the sphere of solving social problems with the introduction of social practices alternative to the dominant ones. With reference to the structuration theory by Anthony Giddens, an original model of analysis of social innovation development is proposed in the article. It also presents the relevant findings of empirical research carried out in February and March 2017 within rural communes of Łódzkie Province as part of the research project ‘Local social innovation systems in rural areas’. Information obtained during 19 free-form interviews with managers of communal social welfare centers was used in the article. With the assumption that social welfare is a possible and desirable area of introducing social innovations, the respondents’ assessments of routine practices of social welfare centers and examples of their workers applying atypical (different from standard procedures) activities were analyzed. Three different types of unconventional practices of social welfare centers’ workers were identified on the basis of the analyses.